Reality Trip
"Reality Trip" is episodes thirty-seven and thirty-eight as well as the third television movie based on the Nicktoons series Danny Phantom. Danny, Tucker, and Sam are getting ready for summer vacation, but when Freakshow arrives and kidnaps their parents, they must find the Reality Gems for The Reality Gauntlet in order to save them! And in the chaos, Danny's secret identity is revealed to everyone! Originally named "School Spirit" and promoted as "School's out, Ghouls out" on Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon aired this episode after "Double Cross My Heart" and "Kindred Spirits" despite it coming before in official series continuity, possibly to promote/coincede it for school ending for the summer. Episode Recap Danny hastily wakes up and gets ready for the last day of school, using his ghost powers to avoid being kept after school for tardiness. He then flew outside and hovered there stating that he would 'just take the aerial route'. Before he could be on his way, however, Jack saw him through the bathroom window while he was taking a bath and threatened him, though Danny easily dodged the blast from Jack's blaster then skedaddled. As Danny flies off, he passes by the Amity Park Penitentiary where Freakshow is still in prison from his previous episode, where he is being interrogated by the Guys In White. He is questioned about The Reality Gauntlet, of which he denies any knowledge until they show off the captured Lydia and their plans to use the glove to eradicate all ghosts, including Danny Phantom. Desperate to get revenge on the ghost boy, Freakshow is freed from his chains and goes off to explain the gauntlet to the best of his ability, placing the Reality Gems in their holes on the glove (the Gem of Life, which can bring anything to life, the Gem of Form, which can change the shape of anything, and the Gem Of Fantasy, which is able to make your dreams come true). Placing the fourth and final gem, the power source (one of Freakshow's earrings), Freakshow uses the Gem of Life, causing the Guys in White's weapons to come alive and twist themselves around them. However, the Gauntlet cannot be used to its full extent unless the wearer operates the gems in the correct order. As Freakshow does not know the order, he has limited power. He frees and escapes with Lydia, vowing to take over the world with him as the ringleader. Meanwhile, Danny, Sam and Tucker are excited for their cross-country summer vacation together. Danny is taking them to Cape Canaveral for the space program, Tucker is taking them to the San Diego Sci-Fi and Comic Book Convention, and Sam is taking them to Gothapalooza in the Nevada desert. But first, they plan to go to a Dumpty Humpty concert located near their school. Jazz then accidentally bumps into Danny and reveals that she is working on a thesis on Ghost Envy for her college entry, even though it is over a year away. Their summer vacation takes a turn for the worse when Lydia attacks the Dumpty Humpty concert with her tattoos. Danny manages to fend them off, then goes after his friends who have been taken by two of Lydia's tattoos. There they reunite with Freakshow. Danny fights him, but he is put at a disadvantage when Freakshow uses the Gauntlet to create monsters out of two oil trucks through the Gem of Form and brings them to life with the Gem of Life. As Danny fights the two, the Guys in White appear as well, leading Freakshow to create a giant humanoid snow monster from a cloud, which falls and crashes on both the Guys in White and the oil truck monsters. Freakshow makes his escape with Lydia via the Circus Gothica train, using the gems to make it sprout wings and fly off. Danny takes his friends back to the concert, much to Sam's complaint, stating that he's on vacation and the Guys in White can handle Freakshow. Back at the concert, Sam and Tucker research the Reality Gauntlet in a book written by Freakshow, but Danny cares more about his summer vacation and the concert. The concert is supposed to start with a giant egg on the stage opening and revealing the band, but the egg has been brought to life by Freakshow, who shows up on stage. Lydia again kidnaps Sam and Tucker while Danny fights. All of this is being shown on the news, watched by the Fenton parents and Jazz, who doesn't want to go on vacation would prefer to work on her thesis. After Freakshow creates a spider out of a drum set, Tucker and Sam manage to break free from Lydia's grip and both grab onto the Gauntlet, Danny joins in, each of them touching one of the three Gems, accidentally activating its true power. As they struggle to hold on to the Gauntlet, Sam remembers reading that the Gauntlet has a self-defense mechanism, if someone who is touching a Gem thinks about hiding it, it will disappear and re-appear in the location they thought of. After Danny, Sam, and Tucker hide the Gems, they all fall back on stage where Freakshow once again leaves with Lydia. Danny, too weakened to follow, is forced to transform back to his human state in front of hundreds of people, including the TV crew, letting the world know his identity. At the Fenton household, Danny's parents are shock that their own son is a ghost. As Jazz steps in front of the TV to urge them not to jump to any insane conclusions, Sam and Tucker's parents enter, having also watched the TV. The parents begin to blame each other for the current mess that is going on until Lydia captures them all. Back at the concert, the kids are all shocked Danny is the ghost boy. Even more chaos comes when the Guys in White arrive by jetpack, hoping to take Danny to experiment on him. Danny flies Sam and Tucker away, but quickly turns human again, his ghost powers apparently screwed up from the Reality Gauntlet's explosion. However, Sam is able to get them away from the Guys in White via mosh pit, the kids now cheering for Danny. They run off and are eventually rescued by Dash Baxter, Paulina Sanchez, Kwan, and the rest of the football team, all of them willing to help Danny and his friends because they have helped them many times before. While the Guys in White search, the three (disguised as a football player, the school mascot, and a cheerleader) are led by their peers into a forest. Danny and his friends make it back to the Fenton household, planning to get rid of the Gauntlet Freakshow wears, but once inside, they are ambushed by the Guys in White and their cohorts. As they interrogate Danny, Lydia (currently invisible) sends three of her tattoos to hide in each of the trio's shirts to keep watch. Danny activates the Fenton Works Anti-Creep Mode which causes the house to attack anything using Ecto-Energy, including the Guys in White and Danny in ghost mode. The trio make their way to the Emergency Ops Center and activate the Fenton Blimp. The Guys in White catch up and Danny presses a button causing the blimp to turn into a jetplane which they use to escape, Danny turning it invisible to give them a further advantage, unaware of a tracking device the Guys in White managed to place on the plane. The next day, Danny gets a contact on the Fenton Jetplane. Thinking it's his parents, he gets ready to confess about his powers, but it ends up being Freakshow. He blackmails Danny into getting the Gems back, as he and his friends know where they are, in exchange for their parents' (and Jazz's) lives and, to be dramatic, they are only given three days. With no choice, the trio begin their quest to get the Gems, each revealing that they sent a Gem to the location they wanted to go to on the road trip. They begin their quest by heading to the space center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. In the space center, a child finds the Gem of Life and activates it by touch, but he throws it when it burns him, causing a space shuttle to come to life and attack the Fenton Jetplane. Danny goes ghost, turns intangible, and reaches the Gem of Life from the pilot's seat, turning the shuttle back to normal, but now falling from midair. Danny, having run a landing simulation on his computer a million times before, is able to perfectly land the space shuttle before it causes any damage. The Guys in White then appear via jetplanes, using missiles to destroy the Fenton Jetplane. Luckily, Tucker and Sam escape via Fenton ATVs and, after Danny places the Gem inside the Fenton Thermos for safety, the three make their escape. They make a pitstop at a diner where it's reported everyone is on the lookout for Danny and his friends, including the cops, so they quickly make their escape (their ATVs turn into hovercrafts for faster travel). Back in Freakshow's lair, Jack and Maddie lament over their son as half-ghost, and Jazz tells them he never told them because of all the threats they made to destroy ghosts. Afterwards, Freakshow comes over to taunt them, but Jazz declares he is merely suffering from Ghost Envy, which he vehemently denies. Danny and his friends make it to Gothapalooza, only for them to find it a cutesy world of happiness and teddy bears. While Sam retches in disgust, Danny merely asks politely for the Gem of Form, which the teddy bears easily give. Danny stores the Gem in the thermos, but not before restoring Gothapalooza back to what it was before (much to Sam's relief). The Guys in White attack once more, this time in tanks, again sending missiles. They escape and hitch a ride on a truck delivering newspapers, the front cover showcasing Danny and friends. They head to their last destination with less than 24 hours left to save their families. Back in Freakshow's lair, Freakshow confesses he indeed, possesses Ghost Envy, stating that everyone in his life, even himself sometimes, loved ghosts more than him, something Jazz relates to. The trio meanwhile make their way to Hollywood where news on Danny as the ghost kid has already reached its peak. Upon being sighted, Danny and his friends are swarmed by cameras. The trio escape into a subway system where they meet kids dressed as Danny Phantom and Sam Manson (but no Tucker Foley outfits, to Tucker's dismay). While the Guys in White struggle to find the real trio, they board a train to the comic convention in San Diego. At the convention, three nerds have found the Gem of Fantasy, causing them to turn into the three supervillains from a comic book they dressed up as (Crystal Leviathan, Scarlet Samurai, and Empress She-Wolf). Danny fights off all three as well as the Guys in White until he gets the Gem back. With all three Gems, they vow to stop Freakshow, but Lydia arrives, wraps the trio with her tattoos, then warps them back to Freakshow. Back at his lair, Freakshow takes the Gems, places them back in the Gauntlet, and presses them in the correct order, giving him total control over reality. Freakshow turns Earth into his own world of chaos, becoming the ringmaster, complete with an appropriate outfit. He sends the parents, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker on a deadly roller coaster ride. Danny tries in vain to save his loved ones, now in front of a live audience that Freakshow created. Danny is turned into jello by Freakshow, causing the roller coaster to run him over and apparently end his life. Freakshow then goes about turning every part of the world into his own creations. Danny is restored back to normal and again temporarily rescues the others by destroying the first two deathtraps. Jazz tells Danny that Freakshow has Ghost Envy and that he should use psychology to defeat him. Danny does so, teasing Freakshow with his powers, causing him to become more jealous and ultimately to turn himself into a ghost. Danny is then able to easily trap Freakshow in the Fenton Thermos. Danny puts on the Reality Gauntlet and uses to save his friends and family from falling into a pit of acid. Lydia attacks, but Danny uses the gauntlet to turn her into various forms before turning her back and letting her fly off. He then turns Earth back to normal. , sparing the world from the possibility of it ever falling into the wrong hands again.]] Jack and Maddie come over and express joy over their son, still accepting him despite his ghost powers. Despite that, Danny still turns everything back to the way it was three days prior with only Sam, Tucker, and Jazz remembering that he is a ghost. Danny takes Freakshow back to the Guys in White, turning him back into a human and erasing their memories as well. He returns home and laments that Dash and Paulina hate him again. The trio decide that they'd rather not go on another cross-country trip after all the excitement they've already had. Danny destroys the Gauntlet, has a similar run-in with his father to the one he had at the beginning of the episode, then flies off to enjoy the rest of his summer vacation. Allusions *The Reality Gauntlet and Reality Gems are a complete parody of the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity Gems from Marvel Comics, right down to the memory-erasure at the end. *The Auto-Jack is a direct spoof of the inflatable auto-pilot from the movie Airplane!. *Gothapalooza is a spoof of the Lollapalooza music festival. *Dumpty Humpty may be a parody of Digital Underground, who had a hit single titled The Humpty Dance, and Humpty Dumpty, as shown by the Egg on their souvenir shirts and a remark by Freakshow. *There are also several homages to Batman, most notably the resemblance between Freakshow and the Joker. This is also evident when Freakshow exclaims: "Look what the bat dragged in" - A quote frequently uttered by the Joker. *Lydia's name and powers are a gag taken from the song Lydia the Tattooed Lady. *The comics convention that Team Phantom goes to is called the "San Diego Comics Fab", based off of the San Diego Comic Con. *When Danny says to the Guys in White at the end "He's not the ghost you're looking for" (in reference to himself) it parodies Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, when Obi Wan uses the Jedi Mind Trick on a pair of stormtroopers. *The trick Danny used to capture Freakshow in the end is essentially the exact same trick used to defeat Jafar at the end of Disney's Aladdin. *Danny's comment on the lifeless Robot Train cars, "What're they gonna do? Rust on me?" is a reference to a line said by King Arthur to the Black Knight after cutting all his limbs off in Monty Python and the Holy Grail; "What're you going to do? Bleed on me?" *The space shuttle scene was probably reference to the then upcoming STS-121 mission, flown by Shuttle Discovery. * When Freakshow brings the Robot Train cars to life, he says, "And Freakshow said, 'Let there be life!", it is an obvious reference to the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. *When the geek-turned-supervillain at the Comic Convention says "You shall not pass!", it is most likely a reference to the same quote said by Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings. Trivia/Goof *Ghostly glow goofs: **When Freakshow was granted permission to try on the Reality Gauntlet by the Guys in White at the beginning of the episode, his "ghostly" glow spreads to the Gauntlet. Sometimes it is appropriate for glows to spread, but in this case it happened before Freakshow even touched the Gauntlet so there's still partial inconsistencies. **Freakshow glows just like ghosts in this episode, despite being a human. Also, note that in "Control Freaks", he didn't glow. But he had spent the past months in prison with the Guys in White as his warden(s), so who knows what could've happened to him? **When Freakshow activates the Gem of Form for the first time & uses it to make those robots made out of train oil tanks, the robots already had glows despite just having new forms & not being ghosts at all yet; they still just oil tanks and should've been until Freakshow uses the Gem of Life of them. **After the Reality Gauntlet explosion at the Dumpty Humpty concert, the drum spider turns back into a normal drum set but retains it's glow. In the next scene, it suddenly loses the glow and it stays like that from that point on. **While the Fenton Works defenses are protecting the trio as they run for the Op Center, there are times when it's weapons change from having glows to not having glows or vice versa. **When Danny is turning the Op Jet invisible, it has a glow except for the wings even before he manages to do it. **When Danny is about to phase into the spaceship and take the Gem of Life, only his hair glows. When he throws up his arms to prepare for the phasing in, his hair's glow also vanishes. Then when he turns intangible, his entire glow comes back. **After Danny takes the Gem of Life from the spaceship and it turns back to normal, it's glow disappears as would seem reasonable. But in the second scene showing the ship falling, the glow is back. Right after that, it's gone again. **In the scene of Danny's legs pressing down on the spaceship's pedals, his legs didn't glow despite him being in Phantom mode. **The four wheelers Sam & Tucker rode on don't glow at most times, yet they do when they are in the 3rd scene of being used by Sam & Tucker to flee from the Guys in White at the space center. Additionally, their glows spread to the former at that moment. **While Danny is saying they don't need to destroy the stuffed animals at Gothapalooza, his hair seems to be the only thing on him glowing again. **When Danny phases the group out of the rocky hill near the road, he solidifies with them to show he's not glowing at all. In the scene right afterwards, he is. **Danny had managed to blend in with the geeks dressed as him, despite the fact that he's obviously the only one who actually glows. **Empress She-Wolf's normal form glows, but her even more wolf-like form doesn't. This might be normal, though. *There are several references to previous episodes: **The EmergencyHam from "Pirate Radio" turns out to have a use, as it releases a Jet from the Ops Center, and Tucker comments that Danny's dad "really needs to replace that ham," while in "Pirate Radio" the alarm for the Ops Center says "Also... the ham has spoiled." **Sam again remarks that "Goths don't sweat, they simmer," as she said before in "Lucky in Love". **Danny also expresses interest in becoming an astronaut, as was said by by Valerie Grey in "Flirting with Disaster", and even earlier by Danny himself in "Mystery Meat". **When Tucker and Sam's parents enter Danny's house, Jack blames Sam for being the cause of Danny's powers. In a way, he's right as the events in "Memory Blank" can attest to. **In "Pirate Radio" Danny (in his ghost form) tells Paulina that she should really wrap her mind around the idea of Paulina Fenton. In this movie, when everybody finds out about Danny's powers, Paulina kisses Danny and says, "Paulina Fenton! I've finally wrapped my mind around it!" *This is the third time that Danny's parents have found out his double identity without having an impact on the series. The first time was in "The Ultimate Enemy" (the knowledge was erased when Clockwork rewound time at the end) and the second time was in "Masters of All Time" (which was in an alternate timeline). *When Danny erases the Guys in White's memories, Freakshow does not have the same blank expression that the Guys in White do, and that Jack and Maddie did when their memories were erased. This may mean that Freakshow retained all his memories. *This is the only movie that does not feature multiple ghosts villains at some point. The only one that appears in this movie is Lydia. **Additionally, since Vlad Plasmius does not appear in this movie, this is the only one that doesn't have him as a main character for the plot. *There are several elements of the popular culture shown in this movie: **There is a kid wearing a Flash costume in the geek convention. **Several geeks are dressed up like Spock, from Star Trek. *When Freakshow takes off his earring, he has one left. In the next shot, he has 2, then 1, then none at all, and for the rest of the movie, he has 2 earrings. *The Reality Gauntlet switches between having 3 or 4 bands for the gems, and the order of the gems changes. * When Freakshow takes the Reality Gems out of the Fenton Thermos, you can see that it opens like it has a hinge. However, in every other episode, and several times in this one, it doesn't have one. *When the space shuttle falls, it falls parallel to the ground. When they show it in the next scene, it's angled toward Sam and Tucker. *The Auto-Jack normally smiles showing teeth, but in the last shot showing him, he shows no teeth. *Although Freakshow wears the Reality Gauntlet on his right arm throughout most of the movie, when he's talking to Danny, Sam, and Tucker on the plane, he doesn't have the glove on. *At the end of the movie, Danny states that only Sam, Tucker, and Jazz remember that he is half-ghost. But in future episodes it is clear that Vlad, Walker, Skulker and others know who he is. This could be because they were in the Ghost Zone at the time and Danny and Freakshow only used the Gauntlet to alter the human world. Or it could be that they knew he was a halfa beforehand, and that Danny was referring to the people who found out during the course of the episode. *In the title page where Danny's, Sam's, and Tucker's face is seen in the reality gem, none of the characters corresponds with the gem they hid. *The big goth statue at Gothapalooza looks distantly similar to Francis in Fairly OddParents. *In the title page, the Reality Gauntlet does not have the power gem in place, nor does it show a slot for the gem. *Just before Jazz bumps into Danny shortly after the title card and/or commercials, his eyes seemed to be grey. Category:episodes Category:Season Two Episodes Category:Movies Category:Episodes focusing on Sam Category:Episodes focusing on Tucker Category:Episodes containing one-shot villains